After hobnobbing with Aam Aadmi Party and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, whom he met only a day earlier, Maulana Tauqueer Raza Khan — the Barelvi cleric who had issued a fatwa against Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen — on Wednesday floated a new party, Hindustan United Movement (HUM), along with Acharya Pramod Krishnam of the Bharatiya Sant Samiti. Both had met Kejriwal for two hours on Tuesday.

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HUM has decided to field candidates for Lok Sabha elections across the country, but if Kejriwal contests against BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, the party would not field a candidate against him.

Raza already has a party, Ittihad-e-Millat Council, which was part of the Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh, but parted ways after Muzaffarnagar riots. Krishnam had this year lodged a police complaint against RSS leader Indresh Kumar for threatening him.

“There are two kinds of corruption in the country, commercial and communal. Kejriwal raised the issue of commercial corruption but there is also a need to talk about communal corruption. Hence HUM,” Krishnam said. The two asked BSP and SP not to field candidates, if Kejriwal takes on Modi.